As Many As Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

August 7, 2021June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

It’s generally much easier to spot the fallacy and irrationality in others than to be truly aware of our own. While most of us will confess to such imperfections in theory, we rarely accept specific examples when pointed out to us about ourselves.

Recognizing them in the culture around us is a start, however. It’s part of that whole “critical thinking” stuff we like to talk about so often in education (often without having a clear idea what, exactly, we mean). It’s not enough to point and yell “GASLIGHTING!” whenever you’re pretty sure someone’s full of it. Intellectual honestly – not to mention our own internal clarity and peace of mind – requires breaking down just what it is we think is happening.

It also means being open to others pointing out flaws in our assertions and analysis. Personally, I hate that part.

With that in mind, there’s a line of rationalization that’s been bugging me for a long time. It’s been difficult, however, to put it into words – which is usually a sign I’m not entirely clear on what’s going on, either with the irrational assertions themselves or with my reactions to them. The pattern suddenly clicked for me this morning, however, and I’d like to share in hopes maybe you’ve noticed some version of this yourself.

“Me” is me in the oversimplified dialogue below. “CA” is any conservative acquaintance I have who feels compelled to set me straight on things. CA may not have right-wing gaslighting intent. They’re a caricaturization I’m using to make a point and convey an experience. No need getting your red, white, and blue panties in a wad. I don’t have anyone in particular in mind – just the ideologies and mindsets currently making me crazy.

Me: I’m greatly troubled by this terrible thing conservatives are doing right now. It violates several foundational principles of our nation and who we claim to be.
CA: You’re overreacting. Your emotional response suggests they’re doing this horrible thing at a level of 8 or 9, when in reality, they’re only doing it at a 3 or 4 and telling their followers it’s an 8 or 9.
Me: So it’s their supporters who are horrible people? For wanting them to do these terrible things more effectively?
CA: No, Muttonhead. most of their minions don’t support terrible things. They only go along with them because they think what the other side is going to do is far worse. You’re demonizing conservative voters by acting like they support what their representatives claim to do in their name.
Me: So, which is it? Are conservative voters corrupt for demanding (or at least going along with) these terrible things or are conservative leaders corrupt for doing them even though their voters would prefer another way?
CA: Neither. The leaders have to do what their constituents want, so they can’t be blamed. The voters have to choose between the options given to them, so they’re not responsible. The real problem is you and the way you keep trying to assign blame and motives which aren’t there.
Me: I… I’m just not OK with this. The fact is, these really bad things are happening and too many conservatives are pretending they’re OK.
CA: You just don’t understand history. Both sides do these sorts of horrible things. They always have. Here are some examples from over the years of things I consider ethically and politically equivalent to what you’re complaining about now. You shouldn’t get so worked up about what’s happening now because it’s just how things are and forever have been. It’s how power and politics have always worked in the U.S.
Me: So you’re saying that despite our lofty ideals, in reality we’ve always been a nation of horrible things? We’re fundamentally like this and always have been?
CA: Oh my god, you and your Critical Race Theory, anti-American revisionist nonsense! America is the greatest country in the history of the world! Any minor flaws we may have had were resolved long ago. Can you not focus on the progress we’ve made? And look at our proclaimed ideals! Are you telling me they’re not superior to anything else mankind has come up with in the past several thousand years?
Me: But… those are the ideals I’m talking about. The ones we’re not living up to. We pride ourselves on reaching to become the people described in the Declaration of Independence, the “City on a Hill” sermon, and the Bill of Rights. That’s my whole point. When we tolerate (or support) the terrible things, we’re turning out backs on those ideals. We’re going backward.
CA: But we always have, so it doesn’t count. Besides, both sides do it exactly equally. Mathematically, that means they cancel one another out.
Me: So we’re really this bad? All of us? And always have been?
CA: Ridiculous. I can’t believe you work with young people when you have so much hostility towards the U.S.A. (*starts humming Lee Greenwood*)
Me: I feel like we’re going in circles here…
CA: And we just get better and better! That’s why we have to mandate so much patriotism and American Exceptionalism in our schools and sporting events, so people will spontaneously feel it!
Me: But we’re not getting closer to fulfilling them. We’re violating them for selfish, horrible reasons.
CA: Just like always. It never changes, so calm down. That’s why it’s not a big deal.
Me: Yeah, we’re definitely going in circles now.
CA: Just like we always have, so it’s OK! Both sides do!
Me: But I have to support the idea that we’re doing great?
CA: WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA? This is why we need more vouchers. On all sides!
Me: *brain explodes*

So, help me out. What am I missing here? Am I being unfair, or have you experienced this as well? I particularly welcome conservative responses as long as you play nice. Even if the other way is how we’ve always done it and both sides are just as bad.

Cognitive Dissonance

December 2, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

It’s been a rocky school year. I’ve been doing this for fifteen years now, and thought I had a pretty good handle on how to teach freshmen. But they’re not getting it. It’s not that they can’t – it seems they’re going out of their way to NOT.

This is frustrating, because I like to think I’m a pretty decent teacher. I’ve taught the same subject for several years now, so I’m scrambling less – which is good, because I’m getting a little older and a little tireder.

So what’s the root of the problem?

It matters because what I’m observing, feeling, and experiencing, don’t mesh with what I believe about myself and my chosen profession. This creates cognitive dissonance – it rubs me the wrong way, internally and often subconsciously.

We’re wired to want cohesiveness, patterns, things that make sense and allow us some control over our responses. When things don’t fit, we make them – even if that means adjusting our priorities, our perceptions, or the facts themselves. Otherwise the world is playing out of tune with itself, just a shade sharp and off-tempo – and it’s maddening.

So, what’s up with my students this year?

Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’ve been careless or cocky or I’m just getting tired. Perhaps I haven’t been as focused, or put in as much energy. I could be letting other things take too much of my time – like this blog, for instance. I don’t like that solution, though – it makes me feel like a failure, and I don’t want to spend less time on the other stuff I like.

Maybe it’s this focus on skills. I used to just teach some history, but no – we’re supposed to make them think and analyze and all that. From po’ baby to independent learner in less than a year? When everything else in their world is designed to coddle and entertain them? Impossible! I like this solution better, but… I kinda value the skills thing. And it’s not an entirely new thing, so it can’t completely explain the problem this year.

Maybe it’s this generation of freshmen. I’ve already noticed more helicoptering parents, more coddling by concerned adults, more learned helplessness. I mean, it’s not that they CAN’T do this stuff! They just don’t… listen! Or think! Damn kids – I do all this work, and they go out of their way to be clueless!

THIS satisfies on several fronts. It explains the results I’ve been getting, but without reflecting poorly on me as a teacher. It doesn’t require any major shifts in my personal priorities or beliefs about pedagogy or anything else. It’s easily reinforced as I interact with coworkers – I’ll always find agreement on negatives.

Best of all, the students can’t defend themselves since I’m unlikely to actually explain why I seem so increasingly hostile. They lack the tools or information to make a case for themselves even if I did.

Once I’ve unconsciously chosen a path towards resolution (of my cognitive dissonance), I find a trove of evidence supporting my solution. These freshmen really are clueless sometimes. That’s always been true, but that doesn’t matter – it’s true right now and feeds my narrative. There are always a few who go out of their way to be irritating. Again, always – but for now, proof.

“I mean, there’s only so much I can do if they simply refuse to pull their heads out of their behinds!” This really helps build some steam, as it lends emotional intensity to what could still prove an intellectually messy paradigm if confronted consciously. The more emotions in play, the less reason is required – awesome!

I’m unlikely to even question my internal framing – the assumptions behind “they simply refuse” and the disdain implied by “heads up behinds.” I just feel, perceive, and believe.

Because I’m not making an argument – I’m resolving an internal conflict. Like breathing, blinking, sweating or swallowing, these inner workings proceed involuntarily and automatically. I’d have to stop and focus to suspend them for even a few moments. To do that, I’d have to be aware of what was happening – which I’m quite contentedly NOT.

Cognitive dissonance results from conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. It’s uncomfortable, which usually leads to a change in attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance.

It’s so clear in others – the smoker who can rationalize away any health warning or medical problem, the friend whose husband shows every warning sign of cheating but turns on you when you express your concern. It’s a large part of why students with a ‘fixed intelligence’ mindset reject or belittle work they find challenging or confusing. It’s an even larger part of why they don’t “care how much you know” until they “know how much you care” – no one wants to meaningfully learn from someone they don’t like or respect. It creates dissonance.

A small group of believers know the time and date of the Second Coming. In preparation, they sell all they own, forsake jobs and families, and stand ready. It doesn’t happen. What would you expect to come next?

Those who admit they were wrong or deceived are a minority. The truly faithful double down, increase evangelical efforts, refigure times and dates, and become more passionately committed as a result. Facts are adjusted, doubts eliminated.

People with clear opinions about climate change, military spending, or immigration, are provided extensive information which may challenge those opinions. The most common result is greater conviction in their original views, not adjustments to them based on new facts.

Comrades of a police officer, soldier, teacher, doctor, or clergyman who takes a questionable turn have a natural sympathy for the position in which that individual finds themselves. They understand better than most how things can be, could have gone, or should be different. They feel the feels, face the challenges, and share the convictions which led them to the profession to begin with.

They face the same daily grinds and the same withering judgment of those on the outside, who simply don’t know…

As that comrade is questioned or criticized, dissonance intensifies. The easiest solutions are to either reject the accused (which creates its own internal conflict) or throw oneself more wholeheartedly into their defense. As commitment solidifies, facts adjust in support. Priorities shift to accommodate.

It doesn’t make us bad people – it’s the most human of reactions. It does sometimes mean we’re dangerously wrong. It makes it easier to do unforgiveable things to maintain congruence. It allows us to corrupt ourselves and harm others rather than face our dissonance in other ways.

If there’s an ‘other side’, the same thing may be occurring. Grays are washed away as sides are chosen. Moderation is condemned from all angles. While it’s unlikely that both sides are equally right or wrong, an unbalanced equation does not justify the dismissal of all inconvenient variables.

Life is messy, and almost everything important is more complicated than it first appears. Real conviction is impossible without a willingness to dismiss messy details (hence faith’s essential untethering from ‘sight’). We would be crippled by doubt if we properly pondered all information and considered every possible angle before every important decision.

But let’s not fool ourselves regarding our passions. We value conviction and consistency more than we do content. We prize clarity over breadth of vision. It’s how we’re built, so presumably there are uses and advantages to such inner workings.

In my classroom and in my world, though, I’m going to try to do a better job of stepping back and being aware of how unreasonable my convictions may be. Right or wrong, I’m going to try to recognize my internal paradigm shifts and reality adjustments. I’m going to strive to expand my vision, and increase my clarity.

Besides, that way, I can do a much better job of setting everyone else straight on theirs.

Related Post: Condemnation Bias

Condemnation Bias

November 24, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

You may be familiar with the website “Spurious Correlations”:

You knew cheese was bad for you, but maybe not exactly why…

Bring on Toddlers & Tiaras – it could save lives.

Accio Spinning Blades!

It’s a humorous site which makes a serious and rather important point:

We all know this. Most of us can identify it academically, in abstract situations. In ‘real life’, however, it all too often combines with another fascinating bit of human fallibility: ‘confirmation bias’.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to screen out or forget facts or situations which don’t support our existing beliefs, while remembering with emphasis those which do. The thing where it seems to rain every time you wash your car (or do a ceremonial dance)? Celebrities dying in threes? The way people from certain racial groups or religious faiths seem to always X, Y, or Z? Yeah, that’s largely confirmation bias.

It’s normal. It’s human. But we could be a little more self-aware while doing it.

I had a principal several years back who simply could not get enough motivational folderol. The posters, the sayings, the guest speakers who turn a splattered canvas into a rainbow sunrise of starfish dream destiny – the building was inundated in hopeful banality.

Every year came the ‘ring assembly’. National company, glossy brochures, and a thousand students held captive to their insistence that EVERYONE regardless of background, want, or financial circumstances, could and should go deeply into debt for the unequalled splendor of class ringdom.

I’d assumed the school received some sort of kickback for the opportunity to apply this fiscal peer-pressure on powerless minors en masse, but I was mistaken. Why, then, did we devote half of a school day – an otherwise potentially instructional school day – to arm-twisting on behalf of some corporation?

This principal explained with energy and enthusiasm that students who purchased a class ring were 68% more likely to graduate. He believed in his spirited core that the connection to school and the commitment to the date engraved on the side were driving students to succeed – to stay in school, working towards graduation, bursting with personal and school pride.

And maybe there’s something to that element.

But far more glaring is the reality he missed – that students who can afford a very optional expense like a class ring are far more likely to graduate than students who can’t. There’s definite correlation, but not because one causes the other.

He wasn’t alone. This was the same year the district wanted to remove 2 of the 4 microwaves from the upstairs lounge in the name of ‘conservation’. There were 12 of us using those microwaves each day, apparently running up quite the utility bill. If we were to take turns with half the microwaves, well – the savings!

You see the problem. There may have been reduced total usage, but only because on any given day half of us wouldn’t have time to eat before our lunch period was over.

It wasn’t malicious, and it wasn’t particularly stupid – mostly. The powers-that-be went in with preset expectations and assumptions. The solution only made sense because they’d already decided on their preferred course of action.

Confirmation bias can be particularly ugly when a relationship has soured and emotions are high. Positives are viewed with skepticism or noticed not at all, while every slip, tone, or shortcoming “just goes to prove” some unpleasantry or another. Causes are not merely speculated upon – they are ASSIGNED to unfortunate correlations. For those on the periphery, the fallacies may be less emotionally loaded but are no less ubiquitous.

Spurious correlations and confirmation bias create quite the salmagundi of doom when it comes to education ‘reform’. Most of us enter those discussions already pretty sure where we’re going to end up. We may even sigh with resignation. Obviously we’re far more experienced and insightful than the other buffoons and schemers in the mix. And – whether we admit it to ourselves or not – most of us have several sacred presets hidden in the back of our motivation which we do NOT want threatened by trivialities like facts, reasoning, or experiences.

Once we despise a major player – Gates, Rhee, Duncan, etc. – no statement they utter or action they take can be anything less than nefarious. Wendy Kopp (TFA) could lead a team into a blazing inferno at the orphanage, perish saving youth from the flames, and the major blogs the next day would lead with skepticism regarding how many of them were going to become CAREER firefighters.

Mostly, though, we’re on the receiving end (of, er… spurious correlations and confirmation bias.) We expect it from students – they have their own reasons for seeing and hearing what they wish and discarding the rest. We get it from parents who need to maintain their own narratives regarding their flawless angel-babies. The local media choose their angles based on what’s currently trending, what makes the best story, or perhaps simply how charming the superintendent was last time they were interviewed. In each case, they utilize facts that fit their paradigm.

There’s no need to lie – there are enough versions of the truth to go around.

Administrators are under a variety of pressures over test scores, discipline, attendance, and a dozen other things – some semi-rational, many nowhere near. Given how little they can directly control, their cause-effect narratives can be… well, just about anything that gives them a button to push or a factor to influence.

As to the major “reformers” – in business, in politics, writing books, or leading charters – it’s true there are those willing to consciously fabricate or manipulate to promote their agendas. Some may even be very bad people.

But I think it’s worth considering that they, too, may have their own narratives into which all subsequent input adapts itself. We all know how easily people form “camps” – sometimes over race or religion, sometimes over oblong pigskins. Once formed, party association radically shapes, well… everything.

It’s a basic human tendency. There’s no fundamental shame. A certain amount of assuming and generalizing may even be efficient, or evolutionarily useful.

But we can fight it. We can try to be a LITTLE more aware of our own foibles, and assumptions.

The lack of such introspection is largely why I think so many educators feel rather hostile towards the presumptive “reform” movements in play. That’s why it’s sometimes difficult to “be reasonable,” or acknowledge when those seeking to make changes make a good point or two, or to keep our own emotions in check.

Because it doesn’t always seem like those driving the so-called “reforms” are actually TRYING to see the complex realities of the fields they seek to overhaul. They too often appear to have their minds made up before they even began looking at me, my kids, my job, or my world.

My kids. My job. My world. It’s hard not to take some things personally.

We must call out spurious causation and confirmation bias when we do catch a glimpse – in our opponents, our allies, or ourselves. In the meantime, perhaps a tiny bit of cautionary humility wouldn’t do our classrooms, our reform-based tweets, or our relationships much harm.